Singer reveals how Modi was named for Grammy

Falguni Shah tells DH about her journey with the 2024 Grammy-nominated song about the glories of millets

Many songs were released to mark 2023: The International Year of Millets, a declaration made by the UN following a proposal from the Indian government.  
But none made any waves until last week, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was nominated for the song ‘Abundance of Millets’ in the best global music performance category for the 2024 Grammy Awards.  
The track in Hindi and English, by Indian-American Grammy-winning singer Falu (Falguni Shah) and her husband Gaurav Shah, features two clips from Modi’s speech that he gave at the inauguration of the Global Millets Conference in New Delhi in March this year.

PM Modi’s speech is featured in the song’s audio version submitted to Grammy. The song’s video version is longer and features two separate clips of Modi’s speech from the same New Delhi conference.

But in a conversation with Showtime, Falguni insists that the PM’s speech in her song was written and recorded by Modi specifically to fit the theme and tune of her song.

Excerpts:

Tell me about the journey of the millet song — how did it begin and when?

In 2022, when I won my first Grammy, Modiji had tweeted about it very generously. In December, when I went to India for my tour, I got an invite to meet him at his residence in Delhi. It was an honour. We spoke about how music can be a powerful tool for change. He suggested I write a song on millet. I was like, it’s a grain! He said, “Yes, yes, try. I think you can do it.”

I had heard that he writes Garba songs and is a very good songwriter himself. So I childishly asked him if he would be kind enough to write this millet song with me, and he agreed.

We have a team in America. So all of us wrote the song, and sent the developments back to him for approval. It took four months to finish the song.

Would you send the lyrics for approval?

Yeah, the melody too. If I finished something, I’d ask him his opinion. “Do you like jowar, bajra included?” His input was crucial.

Can you give me one or two examples of what he liked and what he didn’t?

He always said, “I want to help the farmers.” So the farmer line had to be included — ‘Kisanon ko hum de-dein thoda-thoda pyaar’. And then he recorded five different speeches for the song.

Did he record them specifically for this song?

Yes. Because it had to be in the tempo. I mean, the song has a rhythm. So the recording has to match the rhythm, otherwise the speech and the song will not be in sync. So, they gave us five different versions of different speeches. And we put them together in the track.

Did you think using the speech would take away from the song? Because, although it is interesting, it’s also jarring.

No, it’s there to promote millets. We don’t want any child to sleep hungry. We are trying to make sure that people know the nutritional value of millet, and how it can grow in low rainfall regions. All of this is covered in the video.

You submitted the song for Grammys, and Modi released it in the US. Is that correct?

The song was released on June 16. And we inaugurated the song when he came to the US on June 19.

What I am still grappling to understand is his contribution towards the Grammy nomination.

You know, the entire speech that you’re listening to, it was his idea. And he wrote, narrated and recorded the whole speech. I didn’t write the speech. He wrote it… Jaise Anand Bakshi, the way he writes lyrics. He (Modi) wrote the lyrics of his speech.

(On Narendra Modi’s YouTube channel, there’s a video titled ‘PM Modi inaugurates Global Millets (Shree Anna) Conference in PUSA, New Delhi’. Two clips from this event — one from a promotional video that played at the conference, and the other from the speech he delivered at the conference — have been fused together and used in the audio version of the ‘Abundance of Millets’ song. They appear at 33.20 and 52.35 minutes in the YouTube recording of the conference)

Was there any other support from the government for the song?

No. I mean, the whole support is like, we are working to uplift humanity and hunger. We are supporting a cause which is so much bigger than anything. Our cause is to help end hunger.

The song to me seemed as much about Modi as it is about millets (especially the video).

I will humbly disagree. The song is entirely about millets. It’s not about anybody, any individual, it is about the message.

(The 5.23 minute video version of the song features Modi thrice. Apart from two clips of his speeches, there’s a clip of the PM in a farm and a photo of him greeting a farmer.)